I have so much to do, readers, with work up to my eyeballs. I need to stay on task and to keep focused! And I was attempting to do just that when an e-mail popped into my inbox with the subject “Worst example of evolution misconception.” It was sent by Ralph Bouquet, with whom I worked on the NOVA evolution lab and blogs about evolution misconceptions, so I figured I shouldn’t ignore it. I opened it. And in it was a link—a link to a virtual nightmare.

Do you see it, readers? The steam pouring out of my ears? Picture this. It’s last Sunday night. I’m doing dishes and listening to some podcasts, scrubbing away not exactly merrily, but efficiently and contentedly, when I heard this: “I happen to believe that we should teach ‛intelligent design’ in classrooms. I think it’s a perfectly reasonable thing to teach.”

If you’re reading this blog, there is a reasonably good chance that you’ve heard of the YouTube channel MinutePhysics and its sister-channel MinuteEarth. I haven’t done an exhaustive survey, but I have certainly heard from many educators that they enjoy these videos consisting of short, time-lapsed drawings. With well over three million subscribers, these videos have no-doubt made their way into many classrooms.

Dippy!
Let me start this post with this declaration: the Natural History Museum in Knightbridge, London, is awesome. Where else does a marble statue of Darwin sit serenely atop a grand staircase overlooking “Dippy,” a magnificent Diplodocus? Nowhere.